William Cuthbert Falkner (he added the u to his last name in 1919) was born into a prominent Southern family on September 25, 1897. He spent his childhood in Oxford, Mississippi. He never attended college but read widely in classic and contemporary literature, relying on the guidance of friend and mentor Phil Stone, who was four years his senior. In 1918 Faulkner attempted to enlist in the U. S. Air Corps in order to fight in World War I. Rejected due to his small stature, he feigned his best British accent, went to Toronto, and enlisted in the Royal Air Force Training program. He never saw active duty, however, for an armistice was signed just before he completed his training. Faulkner spent the next few years traveling between Oxford, New York City, and New Orleans. His first (and only) volume of poetry, The Marble Faun, was published in 1924, and within the following three years he wrote and published his first two novels—Soldier’s Pay (1926) and Mosquitoes (1927). It was not, however, until his third novel, Flags in the Dust, that Faulkner began to write about the South. Initially rejected for its length, Flags in the Dust was shortened, renamed Sartoris, and published early in 1929.
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